


1835. A Dæmon's neither borne -

by HopefulNebula



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Accidental Drabble, Alternate History, Daemons, Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 07:31:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16970400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopefulNebula/pseuds/HopefulNebula
Summary: A poem Lyra may have read at St. Sophia's.





	1835. A Dæmon's neither borne -

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afinch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afinch/gifts).



A Dæmon's neither borne - nor Born -  
In counterpoint to Death  
From Aether does he first appear -  
From Infancy's first Breath -  
And springs - as if from Thought itself  
As Person starts to grow -  
The endless Possibilities  
Before one starts to Know -

Such power is there in one's youth!  
Such futures unconfined!  
A gallery of rooms before -  
Yet only one behind -  
Though World before the Dæmon  
Seems narrower each day -  
The doors are ever present -  
Whose keys we throw away -

And when that fateful Moment comes  
When Soul solidifies -  
The world sees us - we see our Selves -  
And from that we arise.

**Author's Note:**

> Much like our own, the Emily Dickinson of Lyra's world wrote prodigious amounts of poetry. By living reclusively and keeping most of her work private, she was able to evade the scrutiny of the Magisterium. By the time Dickinson died and her sister found the poems, many of them (including this one) could be published with minimal interference. (If she had died ten years earlier, or later, this may not have been the case, but this is an argument for a student of history and not of literature.)


End file.
